“… Since 2014, dozens of federal agencies have looked to the American public to help generate new ideas, technologies and discoveries, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy expects their citizen-centric research efforts to ramp up in the years ahead.”
“Those projects have taken on a variety of shapes—everyday people can win money through prize competitions, gather and contribute data through crowdsourcing programs, and volunteer their time and labor as so-called ‘citizen scientists.’”
“Such efforts allow the government to attack complex problems from new angles and get more bang for its buck when it comes to research spending, OSTP officials said in a report published Friday. And as the global demand for STEM skills continues to grow, they said, those programs could be critical for empowering a new generation of scientists and technologists…”
“In 2017 and 2018, the government funded 169 different prize competitions focused on a broad range of research topics, OSTP officials said in the report. During that period, roughly 30 agencies hosted some type of competition, they said, with NASA and the Health and Human Services Department sponsoring the most projects.” Read the full article here.
Source: Agencies Leaning on Citizens to Drive Innovation, Research – By Jack Corrigan, June 14, 2019. Nextgov.
